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OnWingsOfBlue — Accepted, therefore obey...
Published: 2012-08-02 22:38:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 2876; Favourites: 117; Downloads: 8
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"We obey God, not to be accepted into a religion; but because we are accepted into a relationship with Him, we then want to obey."If you don't like this then: don't fav or comment, but DO click the previous page button on your browser please. Everyone has different opinions and beliefs, please respect mine. Nobody needs the drama. Thank you.
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Disclaimer: No one is forcing you to look at this or read this. I am not trying to force my beliefs on you.
If you do not agree with something please do not comment. And for all you out there who are now agnostic, or atheist, or some other religion, because some Christian insulted your personal beliefs, or shove God down your throat, Let me personally be the first to apologize. (From ~RandomK [link] )
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A paraphrased quote from a book I've been reading. The real quote is more precise and less wordy. Religion says: "I obey, therefore I'll be accepted. The Gospel declares, You are accepted, therefore obey." (Pg. 93) The book is called "Breaking the Islam Code" by J.D. Greear. It's a Christian book about understanding how to evangelize to a Muslim in a way that they would receive, and understand the message of the Gospel, which is a message which starts at the beginning and the story throughout time and revealed in the Bible.
I would encourage you to read it even if you don't have Muslim friends, just to understand Islam and Christianity better.
If you're not a born again Christian, then this will enlighten you on why we believe in Christ as a propitiation for our sins, and why He is the only (meaning exclusive) way to God and Heaven. It will also show you some of the core beliefs and values of Muslims and the questions some of them have about their own religion.
(This book addresses Muslims as individuals, not as a political religious movement, so the jihad thing is represented as something most Muslims are "embarrassed" by. Whether or not you believe it is up to you, I am not going to allow comments about Muslims and jihad on this stamps page, if you are going to comment, please comment about the stamp, not the book in the description.)
And if you are a Christian, it will show you sides of the gospel you never even saw or thought of before, while also teaching you much about the misconceptions we have of them and they have of us. I highly recommend this book.
Anyway, this quote is referring to any works based religion… meaning all of them, save Christianity.
I would hate it if my eternal afterlife were riding squarely on my un-perfect shoulders.
I keep failing, I know I cannot be perfect here, but I also know that God requires perfection to get into Heaven. (But not a shallow false human perception of perfection, but what He has described about Himself and what His laws are. Want to know His will? Then look at His laws, (Leviticus) His laws are a reflection of His character, perfection.)
"One of the reasons I'm a Christian is because it's the only religion that would have me. Because you don't have to do anything but believe in God. I love that! I love the one religion that was honest enough to look at humans "You Stink! *sigh* come on in… Sheesh." That kind of God, man, I couldn't have done any other religions because they had all these rules. That's all they know, Rules! You know?
"Hey I'll join your religion."
"No bacon."
" I'm out. I'm out!!! D:<"
What kind of God would deny a man a BLT, you're crazy! I'm out! Noo, no, no, no, that's what I like about Christianity man, it's completely unique, different. It let's me in the game, even though I don't deserve to be in the game. I'm proud of that."
~Brad Stine (a Christian Comedian)
You don't have to do anything but believe that Jesus died on the cross and paid for all of your sins. It's not a works based religion. But before you think that it means you can go on sinning, listen to this: "Go and sin no more" (John 8:1-11). Now obviously, we will still sin, but God wants us to want to leave our sin, turn from it and towards Him, and serve Him from there on out. It's because you love Him, because of what He did for you, not because you have to keep working to earn your way into Heaven, to earn your salvation. We aren't going to be judged anymore for our sin, which would condemn us to Hell for eternity, but we are "graded" somewhat on how we serve God with the talents He gives us.
Read Matthew 20:1-16 for the parable of the Vineyard Workers, and read Matthew 25:14-30 for the Parable of the Bags of Gold (the responsibility we have to want to give God more glory from what He has entrusted to us).
"you cannot get into heaven based upon good works. The gift of eternal salvation is a free gift from God and is something that has to be accepted by faith. However, once you are saved, God expects you to do something with what time you still have left down here on this earth. He expects you to come and work for Him. How well you work for God, and what you accomplish for Him while down here on this earth is where the good works will be coming in. The gift of eternal salvation gets you into heaven, but good works will be getting you the bigger and better rewards once you enter into heaven. This is why the Bible says that “faith without WORKS is dead.”" ~ [link]
So many people now a-days think that they can get into Heaven because they are a "good person", well here's the thing, Nobody is a Good person. Apart from God there is no good. Plus Nobody is perfect, and God requires perfection, you Can't be in Heaven unless you are perfect, because Heaven is God's dwelling place and nothing imperfect can be in His presence. So just because "nobody is perfect", does not give you an excuse to sin. So don't think that "I'm not so bad", or "I'm not as bad as that guy" or "nobody is perfect" or even "You can't judge me" will get you out of trouble with God. God is not a Karma scale, one sin and you ARE imperfect. But there is good news! God wants us to want Him and wants us to not go to Hell, so He made a way for that to happen. Jesus, God in the form of man, came down to earth to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He was crucified, buried, Resurrected!, and lives today and forever at the right hand of God.
TL;DR: (You're lazy
) We do works out of love for God because of who He is and what He's done for us after we are saved, we don't do works to get into Heaven. YES. You may use in your journal!
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Comments: 43
If willful obedience is part of that "relationship", it seems a bit unhealthy and dysfunctional to me to be honest ...
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That's because it is. No healthy relationship involves 'wilful obedience'. If you're in such a relationship, it might be an abusive one.
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I think the wording on this is a little odd.. "obey" has sort of strong connotations and isn't a loving thing. You 'obey' teachers or commanders or laws unquestioningly, and people who say they want their kids to "obey" them rather than just "listen" are a little bit creepy. Just seems strange to me to say "obey god" unless you're one of the weird christians who act like His word is unquestionable and immuteable and anyone who doesn't listen to it is evil.
I can tell it's not meant to be that way but the relationship language just sort of makes it awkward. If a parent or spouse says "obey me", that ain't good. "Relationship" implies something equal and/or protective... and God in the father sense is definately a guy who's like "don't touch the stove or you'll get hurt", not "don't do it just cos I said so!" (Well, the creation story has him not explaining why they can't eat the fruit, but I mean most Christians interpret him as loving and not controlling XD)
Not a hater, just making a small criticism and I don't mind if you don't agree :3 I don't really have a suggestion of how to rephrase this that still keeps the word 'relationship' so I'm not sure if I'm any help.
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The reasons the word obey is used is because Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, and these books are known as the books of law. You see those books were written during the begging stages of ancient Isreal. Moses job was to make laws. So for him to put obey thats normal. Now that was in the Old Testimates, when Jesus comes in the New Testimates it changes. In Romans 8:1-11, sorry about not places it all here, it basically says the Law of Moses is weak, because it is designed by humans who are sinners. The Law of the Spirit sets you free. Thats king of my summary of it. We are saved by faith and faith alone, you can't be good enough to go to Heaven. The thing is though, your faith should be strong enough so that your love for Christ understand thats but still makes you want to follow the 10 Commandments. I dont want you to think that Jesus meant to get rid of the 10 Commandments because God himself wrote them, in Matthew 5:17 "Don't misunderstnad why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose." Heres the things, Romans saids the law of Moses are not nessacary, and in Matthew it saids they are not abolished or destroy. Jesus summariezed what he wanted us to do with the 10 Commandments and this his is only request under the law of Spirit. It is in Matthew 22:36-40.
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Okay I don't understand how any of that explains why the deviation creator used the word obey. You say they used obey because moses is bad and the new testament says not to listen to him? o.o How does that make any sense?
Also unrelated but I personally REALLY dislike the 'faith is what matters, not being good' viewpoint because I've seen people take it as an excuse to be a horrible person and still act like they're entitled to go to heaven merely because they're christian. And it also basiclaly says god abandons everyone who isn't lucky enough to have joined the one true religion, no matter how good they are, and thus agressively preaching christianity is ~saving~ people. It just seems really idiotic, I don't believe in god either way but at least christians who believe good works get you to heaven have a viewpoint that isn't harmful.
Of course there are extremists in every sect so I'm not saying everyone is like that, I'm just saying that view has more potential for jerks to run with it and go crazy.. (Case in point: Jack Chick tracts which include a comic where missionaries go to hell for not being the right kind of christian and a murderer goes to heaven purely because he is.)
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Moses isnt bad, you see when Christ came he did the work no human could do. Live a perfect life of no sin. You see sin is nothing more then not folling what God has asked us to do. But when Jesus died are rose from the grave he deafted sin, once of the future, present, and past. You see Jesus and the New Testimates saids we should follow the law of the Spirit. Because when Moses talked about the law and the 10 commandments they didnt have the savior yet. Christians today must remember that God still wrote the 10 Commandments, not to obey them but to have a guideline for life. You see he wrote obey, not like a slave and a master but like a child who is asked to do something from a Father. You see true believers, believe God is all good, powerful, and knowing. And if they have 100% faith and trust in him they will understand even if they don't follow the 10 commandments always or understand why some are on there, God had good reasons. Again he uses the word obey not in the idea of force, but in the idea of willing following.
Ok now going to the topic of faith over works. There are many false christians. and the thing is if a Christian claims to have God in his heart but acts in a way that does not show it, they don't truly know him and therefor is not saved. Adolf Hitler was a Christian, doesnt mean he is saved. If someone can say they have faith but nothing to show for it other then their word, they don't really have faith. Also if someone is never given the abilitiy to learn about Christianity and die, they will be saved. That is very rare to fine today. Most of the world knows who Jesus once was and have the ablility of learning about him or not. Noteverywhere but almost. But say a baby dies, or someone who has a mental disablilty who can't fullyunderstand they will be saved.
Calling your self a Christian does not equal salvation. Because when we die and are at the gates of Heaven, Jesus will say one of two things. I never knew you, or well done my good and faithful servant. You cannot just say you have faith to be saved. Many use they as a way to be rude. And when he saids he never knew you what he means is this, im in highschool and I can know about everyone in my grade by face and name. But I dont personally know each of them.
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It still has no relevance to disproving my point about 'obey' not sounding like the best sort of word for a 'relationship'. You don't obey a friend or partner, and I dunno about you but I'd never use the word 'obey' for a parent child relationship either. (Obviously you listen to your parents but who'd actually say 'obey me'?) It just really has those slave connotations and I'm assuming the original hebrew word was something more loving.
Yes, it would be a good world if those who think they can get in on faith WITHOUT being a good person would get a nasty surprise when they don't :3 I think faith AND good works makes way more sense and was probably what the bible actually meant. Just saying that I've seen a lot of christians who take the wrong end of the stick and act bigoted with this as an excuse.
But personally I still think its cruel to basically say everyone who had the opportunity to become christian but didn't goes to hell. Everyone who was merely mistaken and followed a different religion/different sect of christianity, or didn't want to believe for a myriad of reasons such as only ever meeting jerkass christians or y'know.. just the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence of god and a lot to the contrary. Not that I'm dissing you for that, I just think if god wanted people to believe in him he'd have left evidence that actually lasts, rather than a series of miracles thousands of years ago and then nothing ever since. Noone can exactly prove the bible is real so people who can't believe in something that looks very false will become athiest. And go to hell because.. they were logical. And they should have believed something for no reason whatsoever, because they were told.
Personally I don't hate religion but I'd like to believe that IF it's real and there's really a god who doesn't try very hard to prove himself then he'd take people if they're good rather than if they're A) lucky enough to be born in a christian country B) lucky enough to guess that christianity is the correct religion and C) gullible enough to believe it. Or at least nonbelievers just get to dissappear instead of BURN IN HELLFIRE FOR ALL ETERNITY 
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There are many difference words we use for the connection between believers and God. True we don't obey a parent or friend, but we do obey a king. Especially the King of kings. As for the idea of Hell. Here is what believers belive. After death there are only two places, Heaven or Hell. The idea is not that you dont believe of punish for it. The idea is that all have sinned and therefor are not perfect. Jesus lived a perfect and unsinful life, and when he died everyone who has put there complete trust into that died to. And when he rose from the grave there life's become new. All fall short of the glory of God. The Pope, a priest, a pastor, every christian, that is why we need Jesus. God does not send you to hell, when we do not have him though, Satan takes us there. God is all just. If someone does a crime the just thing to do is for them to have the punishment, issue here is God looks at all sin equally because all have sinned. So there is only one punishment. The thing is it was never designed for humans, only for Satan and his followers.
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Yes but you don't love a king and you don't have a close relationship with a king and a king is only on the throne because he was born into it. That is a TERRIBLE example. I'm just saying that words have implications and 'obey' is a bad choice considering a relationship with god isn't meant to have those implications
And regarding everything else: no I do not believe that merely by living I have 'sinned' ENOUGH to earn eternal torment unless I follow the right religion. The entire idea is cruel to me, sorry. No crime is worth ETERNAL punishment let alone a pitifully stupid crime like merely existing without jesus in my heart.
'All sin is equal' is incredibly stupid. "You lied once, so I won't save you from satan. You were jealous of something your neighbour had, you were disrespectful to your mother, you wore mixed fabrics, you ate shellfish, you were homosexual- all these things are equal to murder!"
This is why I'll never join any religion with a philosophy like that and I don't want to elaborate any more because I can't stay polite about it. You have every right to believe that stuff will happen to you but its just creepy to think 'oh well inherantly every person is a foul disgusting thing that deserves to be dragged by satan into hell and joining my religion is the only way to be saved!' I mean its a terrible incentive! People should believe in god because they think he's wonderful and loving, not because they're scared they'll get punished if they don't!
Also if hell was never designed for humans, why does god let us go there for ridiculous reasons?? "hey satan I just realized I recycle your prison for everyone I don't like" I mean that even ruins the whole point of imprisoning satan because he's probably having the time of his life torturing his new roommates!
So much of this stuff just makes no logical sense to me and the basic 'hell is for bad people' concept seemed SO simple, geez.. even if I still don't agree that any crime deserves an eternal punishment with no chance of escape.
I really don't see why you had to even bring this stuff up because I was just arguing an etymology issue
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If you want to drop the conversation about hell we can. But the first part about God being a king, well Christians see God as their Lord of lord, King of kings, Prince of peace. We see him as royality, making him worthy of our praise and obeying his commandments. But we also see him as our Heavenly Father, as our Messiah, and as a humble God who cares. The combination between his royality parts and personal relationship parts is what makes a Christian have faith. He is a King with laws that we must obey, but sence we have this personal relationship with him it goes from a dictaorship to a family. We use the word obey because he is a King and Lord. A word that many Christians I know instead of obey is follow. We follow our heavenly Father and learn from him. So weather a Christian use the word follow or obey we mean the same. Obey is more commnoly used is why the creator of the art used it. But he could of also said, we do not obey God we follow him. Either works. His stamp was made for Christians and when a Christan reads it with the word obey it will make sence, and I understand though how that doesnt make much sence. But if he said we follow God that would make more sence right?>
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Oh okay, apparantly weird etymology is part of the religion.. I can't claim to understand the whole 'he's like a king' thing but it makes sense I guess XD Sorry for being weird about it, I wasn't aware it had positive connotations for christians.
Still I dislike it but meh XD I dislike a lot of the bible I guess.
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Oh don't worry about. I dont like to force religion onto people, but if you want I can explain why we see him as a king. And also a very large part of studying the Bible has to do with etymology, especially when dealing with the Old Testimates.
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I can sorta understand why you see him as a king, just not why the writers chose to use 'obey' in conjunction with that. Sure, its king-related but its perhaps not the nicest king-related word and I would have thought they'd have focused on the good parts of a king.
And to be honest I'm not sure about bringing up another topic of bible conversation cos I'll probably just end up talking about why I disagree again XD I have a lot of fundemental moral and logical conflicts with this religion and its hard not to sound rude about it
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Trust me, ive talked to many people and ive taken a philosphy class. I love hearing other peoples ideas, and even if someone saids something rude I dont mine it. And actually its pretty simple, the word obey came from the word obedience. The word obey is used within the Bible, but obedience is used so much more. The only time we see the word obey, is when a bibical righter's passage had a strickter tone. When you have obedience to someone, plus you are following them, you basically are obeying them. Now you might think or feel, that having obedience is the same thing as obeying someone and in the end is not good. But when you take the english word obedience back into acient hebrew, witch is the word Shama, it means to follow and hear intelligence. Christians believe God is all good and all knowing, making him the smartest being. So if the smartest and kindess thing is telling you something, we should have shama to it. Or obedience.
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Welp yes that does sound a lot nicer and I figured the original language would have made more sense
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They kind of do. There are many style of rightings for the English bible. NLT, NIV, ECV, KJV, ect... They all have same meaning just different ways of wording. I've read stuff that doesn't make sense in one way, then went to another and it was more clear.
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Yeah I knew that but I'd only ever read the one my childhood church had, and I couldn't remember which one it was 
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Matthew 22:36-40. "Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second equally imporant: Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."
This is the law of the Spirit.
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Amen! I have heard it said that a religion is an attempt to reach up to God, but Christianity is God reaching down to His children. I serve the Lord because I love him, not because I feel obligated. Thank for posting this.
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another thing that just came to mind concerning what you said: My dad says "The gift he recieves freely is valued naught." What you get for free (God coming to you to help you) isn't valued or treasured. You don't have to work for forgiveness. It happens because you believe.
But I think that a lot of people hate on Christianity because it's kinda a bait and switch. "You're forgiven from your rule-breaking mistakes now. But hey, could you still follow some rules?" It seems like the easiest faith out there. But when people get involved, things start happening and moving in their hearts and they start truely FEELING (things like guilt), and they don't like it. They don't like being accused, especially by themselves when they know it's true. It's not easy at all.
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Honestly, I think people hate on Christianity partly because it is the only way and they don't want to hear that they can't do it the THEIR way, and the fact that Satan knows it's the only way, so he incites the hate. Why should Satan and his minions bother with the other religions. They aren't a threat to him.
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wow, that's a really pretty quote!
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This is excellent! Especially the Gospel message--right down to the point and simple. The only people who will hate this message are those who already hate Jesus Christ--and they can hate Him in many ways. The most common way of expressing hate towards Jesus Christ is what is said in Psalm 14 and Psalm 51, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." By denying the existence of God they are really saying, "I hate God". Like I said: this is excellent! 
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I love that you posted this. Ignore the hate that gets posted on this kind of stuff. Stay strong
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I want to know why you must comment this on every single Christian deviation there is. I've seen you comment on every single Christian deviation I've seen thus far.
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I don't search for them, they appear while I'm browsing. And, well, I like to give christians a hard time.
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Because...? You ask for respect of your beliefs, but you just said that you like to give us a hard time. You get upset when we debate with you calmly...because you incited it.
...Never mind. I give up.
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She asked you politely to respect her views. If she gives you that curtsey, have the decency to do the same for her.
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Please, then, respect my views, and my right to express them.
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Whether you wish to accept it or not, the Bible says, "and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement." Someday you will face the One you say isn't real--and He won't give you a chance to express your views. Unless you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior before you die, He'll have no choice but to send you to hell because of your choice while you were alive.
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To get respect one must first earn it. Normally to get respect one has to show it.
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